Why High-end fashion, Watch,
Accessories & Handbags Industries?
High-end fashion, watch, accessories and hangbags industries have 2 common product
features which are wearable and fashionable.
Also, 3D printing
technology is already impacting these industries and there are still many
opportunity gaining by 3D printing technology.
Opportunity presented by Globalization & Consequences of technological adoption or oblivion3D printing in High-end fashion (Prepared by Iris Leung, Student ID#5389 7559)
Expensive, trendy and more formal clothing which has an established
reputation and is known for high quality.
Although the high-end fashion industry
is limited by a small number of brands, top fashion designers set the tone for
fashion trends, in addition to initiating the way consumers choose their
lifestyles and apparel selection from their high street fashion shop like Top
Shop, Zara, Marc by marc Jacob etc.
Fashion designers have been using 3D
printed materials since 2010, their range has been limited until recently.
The opportunity presented by Globalization & Consequences of technological adoption or oblivion
1. New Market & High demand
Global economy has changed in last 10 years and economic
growth from BRICs (金磚國家: Brazil, Russia ,
India, China and South Africa). They
have accumulated very strong purchasing power.
Particular in Mainland China, people is getting richer & richer and it's
beneficial by China internal economic rapidly increase. As such, they can afford to buy an expensive
and luxury clothing for themselves. In
addition, consumer purchasing pattern has changed from basic, simple and down
to earth to unique, outstanding and innovative.
Ø
Adopt 3D printing
Allowing designer to create a variety design for different customer and custom made for themselves. Designer is simply using 3D printing technology to create what they want and print out without time limited. Xuberance's Shanghai design studio displayed two unique SLS 3D printed wedding dresses at the Shanghai Convention & Exhibition Center of International Sourcing in China from March 12-14.
2.
New
Fashion concept / Idea from customer and other market expertise
Luxury brand strategy has changed. The focus is shifting to consumers, with local trends and tastes. This new mind-set has important implications for luxury brands as its requires to think about their product offering from global perspective instead of oneself.
Ø
Adopt 3D printing
Practitioner and designer can widely use of 3D printing to create and develop more design for different market and tailor made for some special customer in order to suit their needs. 3D printing can simplify the design & development lead-time throughout the process and allowing more time for customer's service to acquire more customer feedback for future's idea .
3.
Changing
consumer shopping pattern
The trend of the way that customer shopping is now
has changing to online and e-commerce since last 5-10 years. Over the last few years, many fashion brand
have made use of social media to market their product and talk to the customer
directly. Personalize, customize and
memorable shopping journey will be a new shopping pattern now a day.
Ø
Adopt 3D printing
Consumer can experience to create their own design
online by using 3D printing technology and they could review the open design
through online service. The whole designing & ordering process only handle by themselves such as review the final
product online and place order directly.
It's easy, accessible, simple, no time limited and privacy.
4.
Global
supply chain
Simplify the supply chain process. Old pattern was
starting from Raw material, production site, Manufacturing, Packaging, Complete
product, Shipping, in-land transportation, Distribution center, local
transportation and finally Retail store.
Allowed companies to expand into different markets of customers and
suppliers.
Ø
Adopt 3D printing
Reduce the total development and production lead-time
massively. And eliminate the handling throughout
the whole process undoubtly.
5.
Material
& Manufacturing cost
Garment industry involved different kind of raw
material around the world and purchasing from different location. The key cost driver mainly from material and
manufacturing cost.
Ø
Adopt 3D printing
After adopting 3D printing technology, there's no
more "made to order" as the order will be by request from customer
individually. Total cost will be reduce
massively due to logistic cost and inventory cost have been eliminated.
Opportunities presented by globalization
1.
New Market/ Demand
With the strong economic growth in
BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and rising disposable
incomes, it boost consumer spending on personal accessories, apparel and
travel. It also increased the demand on luxury products.
New competitors from technology company create a
new market for watch industry - smart watch e.g. Apple Watch. The smart watch
also create a new demand for watch accessories e.g. bands, watch-stands,
cases, buckles will be created.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
Provide flexibility to designers and consumers to
customize and print their own bands with different materials. Company “cgtrader”
even launched a 3D print competition on Apple watch accessories.
2. New idea from consumer and other market expertise
Consumers are keener and more able to express their individuality. Company need to “think globally and act locally”. Watchmaker company keep monitoring the market trends e.g. consumer interest on Smartwatch. The growth of Smartwatch is totally different from traditional watch industry, collaboration with electronics manufacturers are required.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
- Increase the interaction with consumer.
-
Company invest in 3D printing can
also gain knowledge from other company/ industry successful case
3. Provide better service and product
- With the advancements in
internet-based tools, it increased the buying convenience and online shopping is
growth rapidly.
-
Due to the keen competition, company
need to provide more diversified product to fulfill different customer needs
e.g. diving watches, sport watches, multiple time zone watches.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
-
Customer can design and order from
online shop directly
-
Reduce shipping cost and time
(On-the-spot printing/ print in by customer)
-
Time reduced on prototyping gives
designers to have more time to thoroughly review designs during early stages so
they could produce better final designs
4.
Reduce
supply chain and production cost
Companies can select the best suppliers and
manufacturers without cross-border issue.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
-
Shorten research and development
time e.g. prototyping (short term)
-
On-the-spot and on-demand
3D-printed manufacturing will highly reduce the manufacturing cost.
5.
Eco-Friendly
Globalization raised the awareness of environmental
protection. Companies introduce Eco-Friendly Watch, bio-degradable watch and solar powered
watch.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
-
Beside of production cost
reduction, on-the-spot and on-demand 3D-printed manufacturing can also reduce
the environmental costs
3D printing in Fashion Accessories (Prepared by Toni Ye, Student ID#5380 5830)
Opportunities in globalization
Opportunities in globalization
Fashion
(accessories) industry is traditional low-end manufacture industry, which
already developed in many countries. Currently manufacturing centralized in
China, South-east Asia and South America. Matured market sits in North America
and Europe. With the 3D printing technology emerged, we could foresee the
globalization opportunities and effects presented in global supply chain and
global manufacturing.
- New market demand & customized design
Once fashion accessories adopting 3D technology
and going globalized, more and more customized design will be brought out to
meet the different markets. The demand of uniqueness will be more focalized. In
addition, the factories will be more able to accept small order, thus the
customized design with small order will flourish the whole industry and market.
Meanwhile, China & other Asia countries, as well as South America countries, no longer only serving as the supplying roles, but also growing up to be another new market, which will pull up the demand of the fashion accessories industry. It is predicted that these countries will become the domain market of fashion industry, with stronger consumption power.
Meanwhile, China & other Asia countries, as well as South America countries, no longer only serving as the supplying roles, but also growing up to be another new market, which will pull up the demand of the fashion accessories industry. It is predicted that these countries will become the domain market of fashion industry, with stronger consumption power.
- Global Manufacture
The manufacturing becoming automated and removing reliance on large and costly work forces, means no longer a labor intensive concern, thus the factory scale would be smaller. Thus factories of those of MNC can be set up easily near the domain market to reduce logistic cost. The global manufacturing network construction will be more flexible.
2. Lower production shorter production lead-time
2. Lower production shorter production lead-time
Once the accessories manufacturing goes golobalized, the manufacturing process itself will be streamlined as much as possible due to globalized process standardization. Therefore, the production leadtime will be shorten as well. Production scrap will also be minimized dramacally as production process streamlined. Raw material ulitilization rate will be lifted to a higher level at the same time.
- Global Supply Chain
A proportion of goods which is previously produced in China or other Asia countries could be "near-sourced" to North Amercia and Europe. It will help reduce sourcing effort and the cost of long distant logistic.
2. Lower warehouse operation and labor cost
When the
accessories industry being globalized, the demand of global logistics and warehouse
will increase. Under the 3D printer technology, the mass customization of
products decrease the inventory levels as goods become made to order. This
would reduce raw material warehousing requirements, hence reduce global
warehouse operation cost and labor cost.
3. Simplified global distributed system and higher the distributing speed
Especially
for those multinational fast fashion company like Zara, Gap, H&M, they are
now spending billions of money on holding stock to supply products in different
distribution center. In some cases, huge amount of redundancy is built into
supply chains to enable parts to be dispatched in a very short timescale.
- Cultivate green awareness in production and consumption
The material of
fashion accessories are metal and plastic, some of which are non-recycle and
non-eco-friendly. While adopting 3D printing technology globally, the raw
material will be further researched and developed. With no double, the feature
of recyclable and eco-friendly would be well addressed.
At the meantime,
streamlined manufacture, high raw material usage rate, as well as simplified
global distribution system will help the industry going further to green
industry.
Consequence:
Consequence:
- Most traditional component suppliers will disappear
As
manufacturing processes are increasingly re-bundled within a single facility,
the component supplier will disappear, which affect the whole industry chain,
e.g. people who work for those suppliers will lose their job.
- Most traditional wholesaler and retailer will disappear
Build-to-order
production strategies could fundamentally impact the
manufacturer-wholesaler-retailer relationship. In the future the shopping
experience could also be vastly different. In some sectors, wholesalers and
retailers will either cease to exist or become ‘shop windows’ for
manufacturers, keeping no stock of their own. Orders are fulfilled directly by
the manufacturer, and delivered to the home of the consumer.
- Small accessories manufacture will close down
As 3D
printers become more affordable to the general public, some small manufacturers
may not survive between the big giants and homemade market.
Regardless of time, handbag is
a necessity item for women to carry personal items who leave home. Nowadays,
handbag is a luxury and fashionable item which reflects personal taste and
self-image.
Since 3D printing technology
was first introduced at 1980s, it has never stopped developing into a much
adaptable technology into the commercial world. It is believed that3D printing
may spur a manufacturing revolution in the handbag industry.
Kipling is a famous
Belgian-based bag and luggage brand that have released an upcoming 3D printed
handbag in 2014, named “The Monkey Madness city Jungle Shopper”. A large format
SL 3D printer enables the bag to be produced with resin, resulting in a unique,
smooth and detailed print that could hardly be produce using other production
method.
Nowadays, the handbag industry
is facing keen competition. Even luxury brands like Hermes, Channel, Gucci,
Dior, Mui Mui are facing competition from other “affordable brands” like Coach.
With the opportunity presented by globalization, industry players are
advertising and distributing their products around the globe. There is no doubt
that a Hermes handbag can easily be found in large cities around the world,
like Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai, etc.
High-ended handbag brands
emphasis on the high-quality, innovative design as well as the limited number
of production. It is believed that only customized handmade handbags can
satisfy personalize needs.
The opportunity presented by Globalization:
- Market
Globalization provides a larger
and better platform (greater market/potential demand) for high performing
industry players to produce and market its products around the globe.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
Companies can benefit from a
higher volume of sales driven by the global demand instead of demand from local
market.
- Cost
(Global demand->mass production->economies of scale)
Besides, economies of scale can
be achieved through mass production, as large quantity of production will
reduce production costs. Producing
larger quantity reduces unit costs of product.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
Easy modelling
With 3D technology, companies
can create low cost product model during the R&D and selling process, which
reduce the related modelling costs. For example, handbag companies can create a tailor-made 3D printed product model according to customer's design to customer to confirm the order requirement prior to the manufacturing of the actual product. So as to make sure the final product will match customer's demand.
Mass production with 3D
printing technology can be machinery oriented which involves less human resources
employed, this in turn reduces production costs. Besides, with the 3D printing
technology develops, companies may receive tailored-order of 3D products
instead of mass production.
Tailor-made 3D printed product
simplifies supply chain process from online purchase to direct shipping. This
involves lower costs compare to traditional global supply chain activities.
- Risk
Customers from different region
have different taste among handbags. Industry players often produce products
with different size, design, materials for different market and charge at a
different rate sometimes.
Some regions may encounter
economic growth while the other going through a recession. Raise in demand in
some regions may offset the fall of demand in other region. Business risk can
be diversifying through the natural demand stabiliser and the broader product
range with globalisation.
Globalization can benefits
companies from reducing the business risk while companies will face higher
global competition when entering into global market compare to local market.
Ø Adopting 3D printing
With 3D printing technology,
the entry barrier can be relatively higher compare to other industries due to
the higher investment/fixed costs of specialised machinery as well as technical
resources.
3D printing machineries, software
and IT support are some of the high cost crucial resources that companies shall
invest on at the first stage of production. This may deter some potential
competition out of the industry.
- R&D
in 3D printing technology
As a recent technology, there
are a number of limitations in the development of 3D printing technology,
including the invention of materials choice.
With the help of globalization
and advanced information technology, industry experts and innovative ideas can
be easily transfer and communicate through face-to-face and online
interactions, which enhances research and development efficiency and
effectiveness.
3D printing and luxury fashion industry is a brand new topic and so magical ! It seems that 3D printing technology enable fashion industry become a magical world beyond your imagination.
ReplyDeleteHigh-end customers always preferred to customized unique products and enjoy such sepcial experience. With no doubt,3D printing can enhance such unique service. Even customers can co-create their own fashion products by 3D printing. Customers can be desingers by themselves!
The lessons I learn from this article are:
1. Market prodcuts and technology which has been accepted by mainstream customers;
2.Respect and provide customers' self-expression feel.
3.Co-create value with customers can acctract more customers and enable enhace their self-expression feel which is really important in fashion industry.
4. Although, 3D printing brings many advantages,this may cause industry players heavily rely on 3D printing technology which is still too expensive to access.
5. 3D printing will be widely used in this industry in the future.